Back on the placcies

[adamski]

Hey folks!

So this morning I decided to take a break from from the so-far futile quest of trying to catch my first fish in Oz on a fly, and went back to plastics at Double Bay for a change. There are loads of flatties, whiting, blackfish and gars on the flats to the left of the wharf there at the moment. Biggest surprise of the morning was getting an octopus off the wharf on my Z-man grub! I don't have a pic as I had no idea what species it was and wanted to shake it off in the water rather than trying to deal with it on the pontoon. I'd say the head was about the size of my palm, it was a brown-purple colour and had a greenish tinge in one part of the hood, looked a little thorny as well. I'm trying to google pics to find a best match. Switched to the fly later and lost a flattie on the weed fly (would've been my first godamnit!)

Few flatties:

[blackfish angler]

Nice flattie mate well done

[sam bros]

Now that is a decent session

Too bad on the fly

I didn't know flatties took flies

 

[Krispy !]

good sesh there on flattys mate welldone

[papafish]

Was it high tide when you fished Adam? Or low, the water are very clear I heard, hence you could see them fish lol

[Ryder]

Nice haul Adam.

Fly fishing can be very frustrating, that's why I gave my rod away Haha.

Stick with it mate, it will happen.

I might have a sinking leader around somewhere, it helps to get down for flatties.

 

[adamski]

Thanks for the replies gents!

4 hours ago, papafish said:

Was it high tide when you fished Adam? Or low, the water are very clear I heard, hence you could see them fish lol

Hey papafish, The water's reasonably clear, but also quite shallow too and a mix of sand and sea grass. The fish come in close so it's quite easy to see them, though I went back again this morning and it was very quiet except for the gars.

40 minutes ago, Ryder said:

Nice haul Adam.

Fly fishing can be very frustrating, that's why I gave my rod away Haha.

Stick with it mate, it will happen.

I might have a sinking leader around somewhere, it helps to get down for flatties.

 

Cheers Ryder! Thanks again so much for the rod, I'm hoping one day I'll do you proud on it!

So far I'm struggling to find areas that'll let me back cast- bit put off by wading the flats as the last time I was out at Rose Bay I stepped on a ray! Didn't get stung luckily, but still... Wind's been a nightmare too! When I do get the fly out I can get the occasional follow, but yesterday was the first time I was able to get an actual strike on (pure fluke- I was trying to place it in front of a school of blackies!). Tippet was only 5lb though and I made the mistake of trying to lift the fish at the wall, so it broke off. Lesson learnt though, I'll be better prepared next time!

 

Edited November 6, 2016 by adamski

[Farvos]

Nice little haul. A little more satisfying when caught on plastics in my opinion 

[robz]

Adam, Flathead are the best fish to start with on a fly. You really don't need a sinking flyline as such. A floating line is fine and much easier to handle. fish the edges and pockets in weedbeds as flathead love to ambush small fish etc.Most of the really big flathead I have caught on fly came from less than 1 metre of water.  Your fly just needs to be near the bottom. Patterns such as Clouser Minnows or Crazy Charlies are ideal. What weight rod are you using? I would use a heavier tippet up around 12 - 16 ib. Flathead are not leader shy as such but they do have lots of small teeth that will destroy fine tippets. 

Wade parallel to the shore, cast along the edges of weed beds and just strip the fly back with a short steady retrieve. you don't need to cast a mile. Whats more important is to work the water in front of you. Long casts may look wonderful and its great if you can make them but a 30 ft cast will catch just as many fish. Drop me a line if you have any questions

rob

[Razzell]

Think I saw you at the wharf, if you were wearing a raider hat? Was at Double Bay festival with the missus and took a walk along the pier to see what was happening - very clear water and lots of little baitfish about. Hoping the big guys come in numbers soon... there were dolphins in Rushcutters on Saturday, so they must've been chasing something. 

[Chaohuang]

Well done mate, nice sized flatties.

[adamski]

9 hours ago, robz said:

Adam, Flathead are the best fish to start with on a fly. You really don't need a sinking flyline as such. A floating line is fine and much easier to handle. fish the edges and pockets in weedbeds as flathead love to ambush small fish etc.Most of the really big flathead I have caught on fly came from less than 1 metre of water.  Your fly just needs to be near the bottom. Patterns such as Clouser Minnows or Crazy Charlies are ideal. What weight rod are you using? I would use a heavier tippet up around 12 - 16 ib. Flathead are not leader shy as such but they do have lots of small teeth that will destroy fine tippets. 

Wade parallel to the shore, cast along the edges of weed beds and just strip the fly back with a short steady retrieve. you don't need to cast a mile. Whats more important is to work the water in front of you. Long casts may look wonderful and its great if you can make them but a 30 ft cast will catch just as many fish. Drop me a line if you have any questions

rob

Thanks so much for all the advice, robz. It's much appreciated. I'll try upping the tippet and I need to get some footwear/waders for wading the flats. I have a few Clousers, but no Crazy Charlies just yet.

 

6 hours ago, Razzell said:

Think I saw you at the wharf, if you were wearing a raider hat? Was at Double Bay festival with the missus and took a walk along the pier to see what was happening - very clear water and lots of little baitfish about. Hoping the big guys come in numbers soon... there were dolphins in Rushcutters on Saturday, so they must've been chasing something. 

Yeah mate, that was me. Just the one flattie off the wharf, but quite a few along the flats over on the left. I went back yesterday morning too and had a shoal of kingfish nipping at the Z-manz, but no hook-up. They'll be easier to spot around there when this wind dies down. Really surprised at dolphins in Rushcutters, I had no idea they came all that way into the harbour.

 

5 hours ago, mshuangchao said:

Well done mate, nice sized flatties.

Cheers dude, they weren't monsters, but definitely in better size and numbers than I've seen them in the last 6 months or so around there.

[Mike89]

Good bag of flatties there mate well done!